#214 Your thoughts and emotions can affect your health. Emotions that are freely experienced and expressed without judgment or attachment tend to flow fluidly without impacting our health. On the other hand, repressed emotions (especially fearful or negative ones) can zap mental energy, negatively affect the body, and lead to health problems. It’s important to recognize our thoughts and emotions and be aware of the effect they have, not only on each other, but also on our bodies, behavior, and relationships.
In this episode, I’ll be talking to an expert in exactly that; Brandon Bays. Brandon is an author, speaker, and The Journey Work Creator. She has written several books including “The Journey,” “The Journey for Kids” and “Consciousness the New Currency.” Brandon’s story sounds like a miracle. One day she has a tumour the size of a basketball in her uterus then through doing “The Journey” it disappears.
She will talk to us about her early spiritual search, how she healed herself from a large growth in her stomach, and the events that led to her creating “The Journey” seminar which she has been leading now for many years. Just listening to Brandon will put you into a state of calm and lull you into absolute bliss. You won’t wanna miss this episode because her story is one that will astound, inspire, and MOVE you to do the deepest work of loving yourself and others whole-y.
If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like: Jeff Lieberman: Overcoming Depression & What Science Taught Me About Spirit
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About Brandon: Brandon Bays is the world’s leading authority on emotional healing and life transformation. She is recognized as one of the most dynamic, inspirational and innovative teachers in the field of personal growth and mind-body-healing. She is internationally known for her radically transformative work in the fields of cellular healing, emotional wellbeing and spiritual awakening, and is the pioneer of The Journey Method®.
It was in the face of adversity that Brandon discovered her true calling. Diagnosed with a large tumor, she embarked on a remarkable, soul-searching, transformational and liberating healing journey. It allowed her to heal from her tumor in just 6½ weeks, without drugs or surgery. In doing so, she uncovered a means to get direct access to the boundless healing potential that exists inside each of us, and developed a natural healing method that can help everyone. The process works on all levels of being – emotional, physical and spiritual.
She is the pioneer of The Journey Method, a practical and liberating tool for healing and awakening, and is dedicated to bringing healing and freedom to people around the globe. Brandon is an international bestselling author of several books, including The Journey, Freedom Is, The Journey for Kids, Consciousness: The New Currency and Living The Journey. She is dedicated to sharing her message and self-healing techniques with the world. She has appeared on numerous television programs and is the subject of countless newspaper and magazine articles.
The Journey book is translated into 23 languages, and has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide. Brandon is an authentic example of her teaching – full of joy and energy, with a natural love and gratitude for life. Her open, candid honesty, genuine compassion for the human condition and relaxed, warm-hearted humor bring her teachings alive with insight, depth, humanity and grace.
►Audio Version:
Key points with time stamp:
- Emotional Freedom with The Journey (00:00)
- Having to surrender more from getting caught up in Covid lockdowns (01:06)
- Healing ourselves by going on a journey within to get access to all buried cell memories (06:21)
- A journey of radical awakening: How she stayed strong and focused on healing herself despite having a basketball size tumor in her uterus (15:53)
- Living with an inner peace that is untouched by the tumultous nature of life (30:00)
- The choiceless choice of sharing her cutting-edge transformation and healing method with the world (35:31)
- An awakening process to your true essence and letting your soul guide you to what needs healing in your body and life (45:16)
- Connecting to the peace that underlies all craziness and suffering going on in the world (56:48)
Mentioned in this episode:
- The Journey By Brandon Bays
- Find Out How The Journey Intensive Can Change Your Life
- The Journey Intensive Events with Brandon
Brandon’s Website:
www.thejourney.com
The Journey YouTube Channel
Brandon on Facebook
Brandon on Twitter
About me:
My Instagram:
www.instagram.com/guyhlawrence/?hl=en
My website:
www.guylawrence.com.au
www.liveinflow.co
TRANSCRIPT
Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.
Guy (00:11):
Beautiful. We recording Brandon, welcome to the podcast.
Brandon (00:14):
Thank you. I’m really delighted and, and feel really such love for . Yeah.
Guy (00:22):
And thank you for being on the show. I, I didn’t realize how much of a connection you had to Byron bay and, and the area that I live in. So that’s an added bonus cuz you know, all the areas so well and, and the people living here as well, which is just Loveless.
Brandon (00:36):
Yes. I, I have hundreds of, of students who live in the Byron bay area and we had the journey offices there from actually 1999 till about 2014. And so, uh, it is, I feel very much a local as part of the community actually. And so I’m delighted even though we’re, I’m calling in from Greece, uh I’m in Europe now at the time. Um, last time I was in Byron bay was just before we went into lockdown and uh, it was uh, in January two 20 and was on my way to Australia, to India and uh, to give a seminar in India, a retreat there and came to Greece and suddenly borders closed and we couldn’t leave Greece. And we were at a friend summer and suddenly my seminars got, uh, shut down and here we are, we ended up in Greece.
Guy (01:32):
Wow. So, so let me get, I’d need to ask you this, cuz that’s sounds to me complete surrender. So you weren’t living in Greece when the lockdowns happened, but you got, you got kind of spray and you’ve been stay in there ever since.
Brandon (01:44):
Yes. What happened is we, you know, I had, um, seminars from March 17 till July 13th to 20, every single week in a different country. So it would be Germany one week, us another week, South Africa, another week, it would be, you know, England and you know, I was traveling all over the Northern hemisphere and um, and every week at, you know, a different country and suddenly all seminars stopped and we got stuck here and we literally, the, the airports were closed. Like they were in Australia. So you couldn’t get in, you wouldn’t get out. And suddenly I had to move into a fully online format. And for the first three months, all I was doing was daily offering work to the world for free because pandemic like this was not anything any of us had ever experienced. And then over time, you know, we ended up having to shooting the seminars, the in depth retreats here, and one thing led to another and it was still, I couldn’t get back to Australia.
Brandon (02:53):
I’d um, applied actually to cuz Kevin and I, our dream was that we would always finish our golden years. There I’m 68 years old. And so we’d applied for a distinguished talent, uh, visa, residency visa. And that’s usually granted within six weeks and we were told it was pretty much a shoe in that was September to 20 that we applied. And we got notification that because of the pandemic that they wouldn’t be reviewing the application for two and a half years. So suddenly our six weeks, um, approval turned out to be, you know, we won’t be able to know about approval till, till probably December of this, you this year. So it’s wild. And in the meantime, we fell in love with Greece and uh, and have been able now to fly to the different European countries as they opened up. And so I think we’ve just ended up being here. It was talk about surrender though. It was a complete having to let go of our dream of moving to Byron bay permanently and okay, what is life saying? Where do we need to go with this and to follow the pool of how we can serve in life? Yeah.
Guy (04:17):
Amazing, amazing. Cuz the, I can just see like, it’d be so easy to freak out. I mean, where was your home at the time? Did you have like furniture and clothes and things like at home that you just
Brandon (04:29):
Kinda in Britain leave in Britain and I’ve been living in, um, Wales for the last 26 years. I’m from New York and married to Bri and, but we are, are traveling or we’re traveling 44 weeks of the year. And so the last year in two 19 was the last time I was there at our home. And uh, I was there for 44 days in the whole of the year. And so in 2 21 we said, okay, , we’re clearly not spending any time though, that though I loved our home. It was on a cliff overlooking the sea. And so we sold it in 2 21 and you know, had movers come and move things into storage. And literally I haven’t been back, you know, since two, June two now. Yeah.
Guy (05:19):
Wow. We’re getting into conversation now, but I, I dunno if you know, but I’m from Wales, I’m from south Wales and I immigrated Australia in 2005. Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon (05:29):
Wow. Where, where Wales
Guy (05:30):
Lot synchronicities.
Brandon (05:32):
Um, cause we
Guy (05:33):
I’m from near Swanzi
Brandon (05:35):
Swanzi okay. Well we lived, uh, that far from Brin. We lived in Southern down and a little village right on a cliff overlooking a sea. So you’re not far from the go there where you live, right? Yeah. Huh? My husband’s from that day and it was interesting. My um, when I had my DNA checked, I actually have 35% Welsh blood, which is interesting cuz I have more D Welsh DNA than my husband who is Welsh. Very curious.
Guy (06:08):
yeah. Fantastic. I had no idea. There you go. There you go. Well, so leading into today, conversation, I always ask this one question at the beginning of every show and it might, might be nice because, um, I’m touching it yet, but I’m always curious, especially when you have such a, um, broad range of skills and things that you do is that if a complete stranger asked you what you did for a living, if you were at a part or a dinner table, how do you respond to that these days? What do you say?
Brandon (06:42):
Well, I, I ex I explain that a method was born from my own experience of healing from a basketball size tumor and only six and a half weeks. And that it’s a method that allows all of us to go on a journey within and get access to old buried cell memories and go through a very deep and clearing process of releasing that old pain that buried those old buried issues that we didn’t have the tools to deal with and to come to a place of understanding and forgiveness so that when new cells are born, they’re born devoid of that old consciousness as new regenerative cells. And so originally the method was originally born from my own experience, but now it’s being used around the world and by medical doctors and in hospitals and by people from all walks of life to find a, a sense of freedom and ness in their lives.
Guy (07:40):
Did, did you always know I’m, I’m curious to us, because for me on my journey, I never really looked at emotions or cellular memory and things that the unseen, if you like, that could be holding me back. It was always had to be physical, tangible, and you know, I to play rugby. So if I had a problem I’d just associate to physical activity, I’d never look deeper within, but as I’ve gotten older and some of my experiences I’ve shared with you off as well, I’ve really changed everything the way I look at it all. And it kind of all makes sense now, but was that always the case for you? Were you, did you have an idea year of that, like through your early years or did it take a, a brain tumor to really start to look at it?
Brandon (08:28):
Well, it wasn’t a brain tumor. It was a tumor in my uterus, but, um, nonetheless, I’m
Guy (08:33):
Sorry. I apologize.
Brandon (08:35):
No worries. Um, no, uh, from the time I was a child, you know, I used to look at a free and sometimes it would dissolve into particles of light. And I always knew there was a life behind life and I had this great longing as a child to know who I am and what’s the nature of the universe. And so it was an overwhelming, uh, longing. And it, when I got to university, you know, I studied psychology and philosophy and comparative religion and I, I was definitely seeker. And, and then I, you know, I went to conferences, uh, having to do with, uh, physics and quantum physics. And it was there that I began to discover that there was more behind what you could see and it really, after graduate university put me right on a, a, a profound spiritual path. And so it’s been the great blessing in my life that anytime I had free time, anytime I had any money at all, I’d find myself on a plane going to see a master in India or in some other country in the world.
Brandon (09:45):
And just to immerse myself in the presence there. And to also awaken to this, that is my essence myself. And, and I had extraordinarily profound Kini, awakenings and realizations throughout my adult life. But when the journey was born from my own direct experience from healing, from that basketball size tumor, it, it really was a radical wake up call. I mean, it sent me reeling, cuz I thought I was doing everything right vegetarian and meditating every day and yoga and, and doing what I was passionate about in life, which was teaching living health for Tony Robbins at that time. So I used to give seminar hours about a four or five hour seminar on how to create radiant health in, in, in vibrant health. And so the last thing I expected to have happen was to be diagnosed with this massive tumor. And it, it really sent me reeling and part of the great gift of that whole whole journey I underwent was I uncovered a means for all of us to go inside and access the, this, that is the essence of who we are, this love, this freedom to be guided by our own souls to really go on a very practical journey, to cellular locations in the body and to really uncover what we didn’t know that we buried there, that we had, you know, stuffed away pretended didn’t exist, swept under a carpet cuz we didn’t have the coping skills.
Brandon (11:36):
Yeah. When some trauma or some emotional event happened, none of us were given to, you know, a manual. How do you deal? when trauma happens. I mean, it’s happening now with the pandemic and warn Ukraine and, and also with the floods right now where no one gives a manual, how do you deal with this? And so what most would do is we shut down when that happens. And what science has found is when you’re at a peak of a strong emotion and you shut it down, it releases a quantifiable biochemistry into the bloodstream, which will go to certain cell receptor and block them. And it renders those cells incapable of communicating with the rest of the cells in the body. And if over time illness happens, well of course it happens where the cells are blocked. And what science is also found is when you feel your emotions very openly and freely and naturally like a child does are cell receptors remain open.
Brandon (12:34):
And so the great spontaneous grace guided gift of my own journey was I found a way for all of us to get access to these buried cell memories and to go through a process of deep release and letting go and understanding also what’s happened to us in life and through a process of forgiveness, which was key in my own experience where I finally let go of the story of abuse in my life. And so when new cells were born, they were born devoid of that old, uh, negativity that old buried pain as new regenerative cells. And so this is why now these days, for instance, if I go to Israel, there are three hospitals and let’s say you undergo a, you know, heart surgery. Well then for a week after you go to a recovery unit where they use the journey to get the emotional Corolla of what is co-creating the illness, or they have the same thing in the oncology hospital, same thing where there’s multiple sclerosis after you’ve undergone, you know, the straight Orthodox medical treatment, they want to make sure that the illness doesn’t come back.
Brandon (13:51):
So they want you to get to the emotional root cause of what is co creating the, the surface illness. And so that’s what my whole journey has been. And when this, like you, I had a radical awakening also at the time when the tumor happened and it, it, um, it was that a awakening that guided me to allow this method to birth itself through me. And it became my calling. And I’ve ever since then, this was in, in 1994 have been just offering this work to the world. And, uh, and my whole life completely shattered around me like you with, uh, the floods. We are, my, our house burned down in the big fires in Malibu. And then a we, a year later, my husband, uh, fell in love with a younger woman and married her. And so literally my whole life de deconstructed, you know, the first year was the tumor.
Brandon (14:59):
The next year was my house burning down. And the next year, my husband, uh, falling away who I thought was the great love of my life. And, uh, and my, my job fell away. And, and so I’d lost everything and it was almost like the whole of the life stream. It, it burned down what was my life and the journey is what emerged out of that. And there’s not a day that I don’t think life grace, that it happened just as it did that in somehow losing everything. This is my calling was able to, to realize itself my purpose in being on this planet, you know, so
Guy (15:49):
There there’s two questions that really, uh, kicking at me from listening to that brand. And like that’s unbelievable. And the two questions are, and they probably will take a bit of time with both is the first one being, how did you navigate that early on when you were diagnosed with a tumor to be able to, to stay focused in what you believed was the right action for you for the first thing, cuz I, I have no idea if I was diagnosed tomorrow, how I would respond to that, even knowing what I kind of know and believe in. And the second one is, is then how, how do you then when, when you, was it so many challenging aspects happened to you? Like you said, in those three years to be able to stay in that strength, to move through all that and accept what is happening and see the greater good for it. Because even that is extremely challenging too. So I kind of let you talk to all those things.
Brandon (16:56):
Hey, well, you know, as I told you, it seemed like I was doing everything right. You know, and I’d been in the health field and certified in so many different areas. You know, I was a master urbanist, uh, kinesiologist. I had, um, uh, studied and mastered medical hypnosis NLP. I was that at that point, teaching living health for Tony Robbins. So traveling around the world with thousands of people, um, literally there’d be like 6,000 people in a room when I would come to Cindy, you know, and I’d be teaching them how to create vibrant health, how to breathe in such a way that it would, would oxygenate the cells work out in a way that it would, how to, and what kind of foods cleanse and don’t clog the, the body and on and on. So really practical stuff. And I was living, breathing, doing this work.
Brandon (17:53):
And the last thing I ever expected to have happen was for this massive tumor to occur. And of course I’m not stupid. I, I went to a surgeon who specializes in this and um, at the end of the examination, she said, you, you have an equivalent to a pelvic mass. That’s the size of a basketball. And she took me into her, um, consultation room and here I’m trained in all these areas. I mean, I knew everything about alternative medicine. I was at the cutting edge of it. Right. And I chosen her because she practiced integrative medicine. And she said, well, Brandon, it’s not just the size of this tumor. It’s that you’re bleeding internally. It’s crushing your organs. Haven’t you noticed that you’re you’re shallow breathing right now. And I said, I had, but I said, I thought that was the weight gain and it was very thin that time.
Brandon (18:51):
But I looked about nine, not nine months pregnant, definitely not six months pregnant. And um, you know, cuz it was a big mass in my stomach there. And um, and she said is crushing your organs and this isn’t your period. And you, I need to get you into the hospital day. We need to do biopsies. We need to find out is it malignant or benign, but it’s not gonna matter. You’re gonna have to have this surgically removed. And I said, well, I’m actually trained in all of these other fields. And I’d like to be given a chance to first of all, give it my best shot. And she said, she said, Brandon, you chose me because I practice integrative medicine and attach this clinic. We prescribe herbs. We put people on cleanses. We, we have, uh, hypnosis, we have guided visualization. She said, we have, we even have yoga here.
Brandon (19:42):
She said, if I thought you could go that route, that’s the first route I would recommend for you. She said, but look at all these case studies behind me, there’s not a single woman. Who’s been diagnosed with the mass as largest years who successfully healed herself and you need to get real. You need to get this bleeding stopped and then you’re gonna have to take whoever you can get in the hospital because I, I couldn’t see you for another six months. And I talked to her a lot longer and said, listen, I’m trained in, in, in all these areas. If I can get the bleeding to stop over the next three days, how much time can you give me? And she said, well, if you can honestly get the bleeding to stop through one of your techniques, then I’ll give you a month’s time. But if you’re not significantly healed in a month’s time, then you need to come back here and let us do what we know how to do, which is surgically removed it.
Brandon (20:38):
And so I bought myself this tiny respite pin of time, but I gotta tell you, I was with my, um, best friend who I asked accompany me to the doctor and my heart was pounding through the roof and my mind was going a million miles a minute. And I all, I knew that I was already living, breathing, everything that was out there. I was walking my dog and I knew that I was being invited by life to go someplace D it someplace knew that I’d never been invited before. And truthfully I was panicked outta my mind and I can remember walking out of her, her offices there in downtown LA and I was holding my best friend’s hand. And at this point I couldn’t even put one thought next to the next. And, and as I was there with my mind going a million miles a minute, I looked up and in front of me was a mimosa tree, a tree I hadn’t even noticed going in.
Brandon (21:47):
And as I looked up at this mimosa tree, I was absolutely stopped arrested by the beauty of this tree. And it was like, time just stopped. And my thinking mind that it was going a million miles a minute, just wound down and fell into the background. And as I looked at this tree out of nowhere, overwhelming gratitude came flooding through gratitude for seeing the color yellow wind smelling a fragrance. I hadn’t noticed going in gratitude just for being allowed to breathe. And I had what is commonly called in spiritual circles. A Sartor moment where time stopped and out of nowhere came a gut knowing I would be guided to heal. And he, even though I didn’t have a clue how that would happen. I was so grateful for all the work going on in the field of cellular healing and for all the science going on.
Brandon (23:06):
And I knew that even though there’re not yet been a method discovered how to actually participate in that I knew somehow I would be guided. And that part of my healing journey was to discover what was inside that tumor and to somehow heal. And so that was the beginning of me putting my whole life on hold. And for the next six weeks, I, I did everything. I knew how to do, you know, ate. And when I total cleanse fresh and raw fruits and vegetables, fresh squeeze juices had massages every other day had colons. Every other day, I took herbs for cleansing. Did NLP, you think you name it? I was doing kinesiology cranial say girl, I was doing the whole kitten, caboodle, everything that was out there. And I was looking at to like three weeks Radient from all these fabulous things I was doing, but my stomach was still hard as a rock.
Brandon (24:13):
And my skin taught like a drum and I called up an oncologist friend of mine who lived up in Berkeley. And I said to him, listen, um, I’ve been diagnosed with his tumor and I, I, I want to go after and you and I have both studied with Dr. Deepak Chopra and we know all about, uh, you know, cellular healing. Have you met anybody who can give us a method and to really get to the emotional root cause of what is co-creating the illness? And he said, you know, I haven’t, um, come across anyone, but I go to a massage therapist here and sometimes old buried emotional stuff comes up. Why don’t you go to her? And so this is when the real radical meltdown happened for me because I went up to Berkeley and I was lying at the massage table, getting a massage and it, and really guy, it was like my whole professional life came crumbling down around me. I had to look at the fact that I was doing everything that I expertly knew how to do and nothing worked.
Brandon (25:32):
And I had to look at the fact that I was an absolute, utter out now failure. And as I was lying there, something did not wanna reframe that anymore. Something didn’t want to explain it away, analyze it, change it into something more positive, something just surrendered inside of me. And I had to see my whole professional life just crumbling around me and open into this feeling of being an out and out failure. And when I did that, I started free falling into a feeling of being absolutely lost, not even knowing what questions to ask anymore, what answers to seek anymore. And something just let go and surrendered in that. And I fell into a deep dark despair of feeling this, that maybe there are no answers and there was no way out.
Brandon (26:48):
And as I let go in this despair, I began to dissolve into a field of black nothingness that was Omni the present. And , as I surrendered holy to that, there were these pin pricks of light that started to flood into the nothingness and bay that saturated it. And I found myself in a field of light, in a field of oneness connectedness with all of existence of everything, of not knowing an innocence. And it was from this place, this field of light of oldness that I was guided to go on my journey and uncover what was still in that tumor. And so the journey was born from this recognition that this, that is yourself, this love this freedom, this everythingness is in all of us and that the emotions are actually the gateway to the soul . And so part of the journey process is in a very direct and very real way.
Brandon (28:26):
You open into this, that is your essence, and it’s your soul that guides you on the journey and it’s your soul that reveals what’s stored there. And it’s your soul that does the healing, that infinite intelligence, that part of you that makes your heart beat and your eyes shine and your hair grow. That does all the doing. And so that’s how I moved from being, you know, from the medical to the spiritual, in my healing journey. And I ended up doing three processes, very similar to this, and it was the same emotional theme over the next three and a half weeks. And by the time I got into Cedar Sinai hospital to have my scans done, it was six and a half weeks. The total journey, my stomach had gone down and down and down. And when they did the 43 scans of my uterus, I was pronounced, textbook, perfect, clean, completely tumor free. And so the journey is about radical awakening and it’s about getting real, all the things that we couldn’t face, that we didn’t face, that we ack down the carpet to clear them in the context of this healing, grace, that is your essences. So that’s that answer. And you asked the second question and I, I can’t remember what it was for know,
Guy (30:03):
I’m, I’m speechless. Um, you, you kind of answered it because the second question was with the, the continued adversity that came your way after that.
Brandon (30:13):
Yeah. Right. Well, in the realization of this love and the recognition that that is who I am and who you are and who everyone is, it didn’t change the tumultuous nature of life. You know, life came and the very next year in the same month that I healed from the tumor, then there were the big mega fires in Malibu, California, where I’d moved from New York city to Malibu my then. And so our house burned down. And even though we lost everything, our cars exploded. There was a way that there was a piece inside that was untouched by it all.
Brandon (30:58):
And that piece is who all of us are, even though externally, yes, it’s devastating to lose everything internally. There was a peace underlying it, all that was inescapable and unchanging. And then when my husband, the man who I felt was the great love of my life, fell in love with the younger woman and left me for her again, after we just cobbled our lives back together, put a roof over our head after the fires here was this. And at the time, you know, obviously it’s devastating, heartbreaking, but underneath the heartbreak was a wholeness piece that was undisturbed by it all. And that was what was carrying me through it all. And then of course I lost, you know, the job. I mean everything. And didn’t even know how I would put food in my mouth. And even through the crisis of it all, there was a knowing that this was some sort of divine orchestration and that in the end, what I came to know guy is with a body I’m not my body with a house burning down.
Brandon (32:30):
I’m not my material possessions with the loss of the marriage. I’m not my marriage with a loss of the livelihood. Actually. I’m not that either I am this, this love upon which all the other tumultuous of life is occurring. And this love that is here is know it can’t go anywhere because it’s who I am. And so it was a deconstruction of what was my life at that time. And like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of my life, the journey birth itself. And I was able to then follow that calling and begin offering this life changing work around the world. And I have to say, you’re the first interviewer that I have been with, who told me that you had in all these years, cuz you know, we’re, we’re talking um, 28 years ago that this all happened, right? And I’ve done hundreds, perhaps even thousands of interviews in this time period. And you’re the first one who introduced yourself as having experienced radical Kini awakening and how it transformed your life. And it’s the first time I’m sitting here revealing this in the way that I am, because I feel like we are kindred soul in that kindred spirits feeling that I can just expose the, the raw complicity and truth of it.
Guy (34:17):
It truly means a lot. Thank you. And, and I’m listening to you and I’m relating to everything that you share. Cause on my journey, there have been aspects where I’ve had to know what it almost feels like to fully surrender where I thought my body thought I was going to die. So I, I actually surrendered into that. And, and I too had an experience where I fell into a vastness of nothing, which I’ve never shared on the podcast before. And then it connected to the greatness of everything from that. And it was only in that moment. I actually understood what it meant to surrender mm-hmm and, and to, to, to fully let go in a moment, which was the most terrifying and exhilarating moment, I think my entire life,
Brandon (35:11):
My greatest teacher. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Guy (35:19):
When did you decide? Oh, sorry, please finish.
Brandon (35:24):
No, no, no, go ahead.
Guy (35:27):
I then did you decide to then bring this message to the world? Cuz clearly you’ve done an amazing job.
Brandon (35:38):
You, it, um, it was a decision that was a choiceless choice. Like you remember, um, it was a year after my husband had fallen in love with another woman and we had just gone to an arbitrator and gotten a divorce that way. And the divorce had come through and I had, um, you know, I was living literally hand to mouth just with therapies that I was doing, but it wasn’t enough and much of my adult life as a wife was being not only supporting my husband his career, but was supporting Tony in his career and it was never about my career. And so, you know, I didn’t have a career more than supporting my husband and supporting Tony. And then my own side business of do, you know, doing therapy, offering, uh, therapeutic sessions. And, and so I had just gotten the final divorce papers through that said that we were divorced and we’d agreed in this arbitration that I, my husband, I wouldn’t, we wouldn’t divide everything in half, but that for two years, until I could get myself back on my feet and start my own career, that he would send me very modest support check every month, a spouse, a support check every month, even though we’d been together for 22 years, uh, I, you know, we just thought the easiest way is for me to, you know, get back on my own two feet, I’m 42 years old and I need to start a bonafide full career for my own life.
Brandon (37:18):
And the first check had come through and I was waiting for the second check to come through and out of nowhere, having been through a tumor, a house, putting down husband leading me, I started having panic attacks happening where this terror would overcome me and I’d be vacuuming the floor or something. And outta nowhere, terror would arise and I would fly into motion. No one gave me a manual. How do you deal with terror ? And so what I would do is I would, I would, you know, suddenly get more clients I’d, I’d go out with my friends. I’d, you know, was constantly emotion, distracting myself from this. I’d never had panic attacks in my life. I, I don’t even know if you’d call the panic attack where I just get this overwhelming terror that would come with no story just flying through me.
Brandon (38:16):
And, um, it was a week later I was vacuuming again and, and the tear just came, you know, overwhelming. And immediately I started vacuuming even faster and I thought, stop, Brandon, what are you running from? And I just sat down on the sofa, closed my eyes and what am I so afraid of and a picture of that support check, not coming through. So the check that would make, make it possible for me to live was not gonna come through and there was absolute terror with, and I thought, this is ridiculous. I’ve lost a house. I’ve lost a husband. I’ve lost a, you know, nearly died. And I’m afraid because one spouse is a poor check is not gonna come. And I thought there must be something deeper. And so I just asked, well, so if that happened, the check didn’t come in. What’s the worst that could happen.
Brandon (39:15):
And immediately I saw after about six weeks, I’d run out of funds and have to give up the apartment I was living in. And, um, and you know, my landlord who loved me, you know, he, he would have to kick me out. And as I thought about the prospect of being it out at 42 years old and with all my degrees and certifications and diplomas that I couldn’t even take care of myself and the shame of that and the fear in that. And I, I said, okay, if that happens, I get booted out. What’s the worst that can happen. And he said, well, and in internally, I, I said, well, the worst that could happen is I’d have to go live with my mother. And I would immediately put a next to that picture of not gonna do that at 42 years old, go live with my mom, you know?
Brandon (40:09):
And so I saw myself going to my best friend’s house, but after two weeks time, you know, in America have this saying, you know, you wear out your welcome and my friend would have to boot me out. And I thought, well, if that happened, what’s the worst that happened. And I found myself on the streets of New York city, my hometown as a street person, holding out a cup, looking for quarters. And that’s what my life had devolved to. And I said, well, what’s my deepest fear here. And my deepest fear is I haven’t got what it takes to survive and intrinsically I haven’t got what it takes to survive. And somehow in letting go into that fear, I fell again into the nothingness and into the light and realized that even if my body did die and that’s what it felt like was happening. Cuz if I haven’t got what it takes to survive was the worst that could happen, will you die?
Brandon (41:19):
And it felt like something was dying. And I fell into that darkness again and eventually ended up in this eternal presence that cannot die. And it was like, I faced down my worst fear in life. And somehow in facing that down, I took out a piece of paper and I said, well, what’s the best hap that could happen. Let’s say with the journey, I clear out this worst fear. What’s the best that could happen. Well, the best could happen. You could get real and realize that your husband, isn’t sending in that check and you’re gonna have to get your act together and start on your own. And then I said, well, if that happened, if I got real, what’s the best that could happen. Well, next day you go down into the meditation center in Santa Monica and you try to get a roommate so you can split the cost of your two bedroom flat.
Brandon (42:15):
And so buy yourself some breathing space and then, oh, what’s the best that could happen if that happened. Well, then you’d get real and start telling people, you know, in the seminar industry about this extraordinary work called the journey that has, you know, birth itself. And I said, well, if that happened, then what could happen? Well, eventually I’d start seminars around the world. If that happened, then what would happen? I started putting out books and I’d written six, you know, and, uh, the journey was a massive international bestseller. And so I kept writing, well, that’s the best that could happen. And it turned out that I did do a journey process, cleared out my worst fear that I didn’t have a, it takes to survive. And I started doing that. I went to the meditation center, got a roommate that next day started calling my friends in the seminar industry who I’ve known for 20 years.
Brandon (43:07):
And, and, and suddenly I started giving, uh, seminars in people’s houses. One thing led to another and then ended up newspapers and in television shows and then the journey book was written and then it became an international bestseller. And you know, the last time I was online giving thought song, it was for 1300 people and we had the translations going on, uh, like a multi, you know, this is an online seminar in Germany, in Germany, Italian in French, an Estonia and Hebrew and people would just push a button on our, you know, mighty ma um, network platform that we have. It’s this incredible platform. And they’d get simultaneous translation happening as I was giving a seminar live spontaneously and uh, you know, all the different languages we had, uh, seven different just being translated . And so that’s how we ended up being in 39 countries and it’s translated into 23 languages.
Brandon (44:05):
And yeah. And so it’s, it’s been quite a journey all because. And so you asked what, what prompted me to give the journey the truth? It was a choiceless choice. I realized no money was coming in and I had to be brave enough to finally let everyone know a secret that I’ve been giving, keeping to myself because it was such a sacred journey. I, I didn’t feel to share it with people, but then this overwhelming pull to give this profoundly liberating and healing work to the world called me to it. And it took, being brought to my knees by life to finally respond to that pull. And so it’s why I breathe now.
Guy (44:55):
Amazing. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. Brandon just gives me goosebumps listening to that story. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. How would you then describe, I’m just thinking to the, the podcast, cause we haven’t even got onto it yet. I’m aware of the time, but how would you actually describe to someone the journey? Is it a meditation? Is it a process? Is it something that we do daily, weekly revisit?
Brandon (45:21):
Okay. It’s a guided introspective, excuse me, it’s a guided introspection. And it’s a, it’s a process says for awakening to your true essence in letting your soul guide you to what needs healing inside your body, what needs healing in your life, in your relationships and your career in every aspect. And so I believe that no one can tell someone how to heal. The part of healing is they find their own truth, find their own answers, do their own clearing come to their own understanding of what’s happened to them in their lives, come to their own wisdom, come to their own forgiveness so that when the new cells are born, they’re born devoid of that old programming as new healthy regenerative cells. And so, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a journey for everyone. And it’s a journey that I feel that everyone can, if they feel the calling, you have to feel a calling to want to get real, to want to wake up, to want to heal.
Brandon (46:42):
If you don’t feel that calling this isn’t for you, if you want to glide along in life, then this, this work is too deep for someone who’s, it’s not for people of casual interest is for people who have a deep prayer to heal their lives and to set themselves free. And so we tend to get a lot of people. Who’ve done a huge amount of work on themselves and not succeeded. Like I had, I’ve done so much work. I’ve been on a spiritual path, my whole adult life and still got a tumor. And it took that tumor to, to bring me to my knees, to finally have this radical awakening. And so often life has to bring people to a place where they’re at a place. They recognize that they need help. They need healing, or they have like, I did an overwhelming desire to find out who they are and a need to come home to that and a sense that, that exists within them. So I always say to people, this is work for fellow lovers of the truth, you know?
Guy (48:01):
Yeah. I was gonna say, do you think that need is the, is the main ingredient to, to self healing? How well, what would you say it is?
Brandon (48:15):
I would say that, that, you know how it is with, you’ve heard about people who have had addiction, you know, who’ve had, you know, uh, perfect lives. Their lives are all in a, you know, all ducks in a row. And then something happens at Christ just happens and, or an illness happens where life gives you a wake up, call it, knocks you on the head and says, wake up. There’s something more that needs to be investigated here. And so, or some people were like me that from the time I was a child, I sensed there was more to life than what you could see with your naked eye and longing to discover this mystery, to understand it, to, to bathe in it, you know, to embrace whatever that mystery is longing to, to surrender to it. And so some people are born with that longing, like I was, and some people have to have something radical happen for them to say, okay, it’s time.
Brandon (49:26):
I did something. And so it, it is, I do feel that the thing to do this work has to be there. And that’s why always with the journey I always said to people, listen, now you can get the, we, we give the book book away the journey on our, our website, the journey.com, which you can download for free, because always said to people, read this book, see if it speaks to your heart, if it calls to you, then you can embark on this journey. But this is not work for people who are just wanting, oh, let’s think positive. Let’s do some joyous, fun, rah, you know, do some positive affirmations. If that’s what you’re wanting, this isn’t the path for you. . But if you’re wanting to grow up your sleeves and get real and let go of the mask and come home to something that feels true inside, then this is work for you.
Brandon (50:33):
And, uh, one of the things I mentioned to you before we started is that, you know, I’ve been online now giving deep seminars and retreats, et cetera, since June of 2020, in addition into a lot of free work that I’m offering online to serve people during the pandemic. And then the floods happened. Now, Ukraine is here. I warn Ukraine and I’ve been doing prayers, et cetera, putting out websites where, how you can help people in, uh, Ukraine who are refugees from Ukraine war. And here in Europe, it’s very present to all of us. We all know, uh, refugees coming over mothers and children. And so I’ve been trying to support in that. And so for the first time ever for people really longing to undergo a deep immersion, we’re giving the journey intensive in may, in Australia, in the us and in Europe at 70% off.
Brandon (51:38):
And so it’s, it’s the first time ever that we’ve given this incredible discount where for two days you’re immersed in meditations work, deep teaching. And what my prayer is is when people go through the journey intensive, that it’s not just that their wash clean and, you know, feel light and whole, but that they take these tools and they give them away to their children, their family, their loved ones that at a time when we’re the world is in such a tumultuous place, that there’s a piece that we can all come home to. And so, um, I know Gabby wrote it down for me in Australia is coming up soon, 14th to the 16th of May and also in the of 14th and 16th. And then in Europe is the 21st, the 23rd of May. And so it’s, um, the only time we’re doing this is to support people because we’ve all been in such a, a world of tumult and in the unknown.
Brandon (52:48):
And I’ve recently to be connecting with the people who, you know, journey practitioners in Australia. And we’ve had hundreds of them and thousands who have gone through the, the journey intensive and the journey program. And so many of them lost their homes like I did with the fires to the floods. And so this work has been so essential during this catastrophic time that everyone’s been living through. And like here in Europe, it’s been heartbreaking and heart melting the way that everyone’s come forward to offer help with Ukraine and here 50,000, uh, jobs have been offered here in Greece. And, uh, you know, people are taking them in the refugees, into our homes and in a hundred thousand homes have been opened up in, uh, England and, and, uh, throughout Europe, you know, no matter where you go, uh, we’re, we’re opening homes and hearts, transportation, um, Airbnb is just giving, uh, places away.
Brandon (53:58):
It, it is just, it’s been, as it was, uh, during the floods with you, you, the not just the original flood, the biblical proportion one, but the flash flood that happened subsequently that it brought the whole community together. And I feel that Ukraine, if, if the polarization that happened with COVID and vaccine non vaccine, and, you know, the polarizations within governments and within countries that happened, then the floods brought everyone together and reaching out to our fellow man to our fellow human beings. And the same thing happened with born Ukraine that it’s brought everyone together. That is not from Ukraine here in the west, at least, and joined all our hearts in this desire to serve. And I don’t know any better way to serve right now than to help people through this crazy tumultuous time than giving them these potent and powerful tools that can liberate your life and to bring people to wholeness.
Brandon (55:19):
And so that’s why we’re doing this incredible thing of offering the seminar. Um, the, the deep, deeper you can do the, the free live one hour, hour, and a half seminars with me, you know, throughout the year. But if you want the deep immersion where you really learn how to use these skills in your life as an ongoing basis, and you act asked me, you know, how often do you do the journey? And when I on tour 44 weeks of the year, I did it once a week. Cause I never wanted to be. So aand is to say, I’ve got it all handled. I know there’s more than one issue and cell memory stored in here. And I feel it’s a privilege to clear whatever holds me back, whatever me down, whatever is blocking me in any way so that I can live more holy and freely as this love. And the truth is guy. I’m gonna be a student of life. Yeah. Till the day I die, I’ll be undergoing the journey till the day I die.
Guy (56:26):
That’s first of all, it’s very generous, very kind of you Brandon, and for everyone listening, there’ll be links beneath whether you’re watching this on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, they can literally just pause, drop below and click through to find up more about the intensive workshop and listen. Fantastic. And Brenda, I got one question that I ask everyone to finish on the show, and that is with everything we’ve covered today, what would you like to leave our listeners to ponder on
Brandon (56:59):
That? There is peace underneath all the craziness. There is a piece that underlies all suffering and that it is possible to connect to that piece that who you are is already free. You are already home and that this piece can be found in the core of your worst emotions. That’s where you’ll find this piece that you’re seeking. And so I pray everyone here finds their way home to that, love to that peace within and loves that truth enough to want to clear whatever, holds them back, whatever, shuts them down, whatever in any way, blocks them so that more of this love can live your life. And I pray that you become a living transmission of this love that you’re like this molder that’s thrown into the pond of consciousness. That is your life and the waves of awakening and healing go out from you as a living transmission of this consciousness. And so I thank you with all my heart guy for this lovely meeting in the one. And I pray I will meet those who watch and listen along the route. somewhere. It seems that we’re carrying on here online for a while. Now it may be quite some time before I find my way back to Australia, which I greatly love Australia. And of course, those of you in the, in the Shire, in that region and, um, just a heart Nama day to everyone and big love and, and a heart Nama day to you.
Guy (59:00):
Thank you so much, Brandon, big love to you on chat to today in this podcast. And I can’t wait to share it with everyone on there. So thank you. Thank you kindly.